The Windows Phone Marketplace has now had 50,000 applications published since it launched back in October 2008.

50,000 applications is a good figure, but pales in comparison to the 500,000 available on the Android Market and Apple's App Store.

However, Windows MarketPlace has taken just 14 months to reach 50,000 applications , while it took the Android Market 19 months to reach the same figure. Apple's App Store took just 12 months, but that isn't that much better than Microsoft.

One thing that will disappoint Microsoft is that far more of its applications are downloaded free when compared to Apple's App Store. 58 per cent of the applications downloaded from the Windows Phone Marketplace are free, while 14 per cent come with a free trial and just 29 per cent are paid. Apple meanwhile have a ratio of 43 per cent free and 57 per cent paid . which is truly staggering.

Microsoft will be hopeful that their Marketplace continues to grow, but this depends on the adoption of Windows smartphones. Nokia could well have a huge role to play in the success of Windows smartphones and the next 12 months are going to be huge.

3G will continue to report on the progress of the Windows Phone Marketplace !

Source